Christmas!!

Christmas

Secrets

Sometimes I see things in Cairo, and I just wish I could really make other people feel the same sort of wonder that I feel. I try to take pictures or videos, but it is just not the same. I feel like I can capture the moment, but it's like the video just isn't big enough. I look at the tape and I can’t see the surroundings and the atmosphere. I try to stand back and take another video but it doesn't capture the detail, or the significance. It feels like I should be able to take videos of everything, as there was some way I could do it in and you could see what I see, but I'm starting to think it's not the angle of the camera or the size of the screen, it's that you just can't capture the experience of actually being here.

The city is full of secrets. Hidden areas, out of view, at least to me. I don't think they’re meant to be like that, it's just I’m used to a Western city layout and Western style signs, and I don’t know what to look for. I can walk down the street and it's just a row of stores and buildings. I walk past, the first is a Radio Shack, then a clothing store, then a narrow gap between buildings, then a café serving shesha (tobacco in a hookah) coffee filled with Egyptians watching the soccer match, then a little market packaged food, and a man selling vegetables on the street. Then I take a second, and go back to the gap. It's a 4-foot wide space in-between two of the stores that are usually built with their walls connecting. You go into the gap and walk down a short alleyway paved with dust, and the world opens up in front of me with a thriving market filled with shoppers hustling about, fresh fruits lay in boxes and windows filled with the meat for the butcher shop. It's really a maze with several entrances and exits, hidden between the walls of the shops that lay on the street. It’s not a secret, but so easy to miss if you don't know what to look for. It’s filled with locals, and me the only foreigner, even though it's less than 2 blocks away from the American University. I've walked that street almost every day, going to and from school for about three months now. This is the first time I thought to explore what was inside the gap. It's hard to describe, you just have to be here.